Posts Tagged 'How-to'

I’ve been terribly neglecting the little green box. There’s so much going on in our lives right now and my crafting skills and efforts were focused elsewhere (I’m nesting like a crazy bird… more about that – on a different post). I have a few things to share with you, but because I’ve been such a bad blogger – I’ll start with this really cool diorama tutorial!

So, what’s a Diorama? one of the dictionary’s definitions is: “a miniature three-dimensional scene, in which models of figures are seen against a background”. Miniature? 3D? Sounds good to me. There are many ways to create a diorama, and if you google it you’ll probably find many versions and ideas. This tutorial will teach you how to make a most basic diorama frame, which you can personalize, change and adjust to your liking. The cool thing about this one is that, not only this is a tiny 3D picture that you can put on display, but it also FLATTENS so you can put it in an envelope and mail it! Pop-up card and diorama, all-in-one!

So – shall we begin?

1. First step will be to choose your papers. I chose a collection of 4 shades of orange cardstock. Feel free to choose patterned paper instead, as long as it’s as heavy as cardstock, so it won’t come out too flimsy.
Next, cut your papers so they’ll measure slightly less than your envelope. My envelope was a 11×15 cm, so I’ve cut all my papers 10×14 cm. The diorama comes out a bit thick, so you’ll want to make sure it slides easily in and out of the envelope. Not using an envelope? cut it any size you want!
Use a pencil and mark a 1 cm inner frame on the back of three of the papers, leaving out the one paper you chose for the back of the diorama. I wanted my shades of orange to go from light (in the front) to dark (on the back), so I left the darkest shade unmarked.

2. Cut out the frames you marked (remember – the back of the diorama stays uncut!). Keep the insides of the frames aside, we’ll use them in a moment.

3. Using the insides of the frames from the previous step, cut two strips of paper from each color. Each strip should measure 10×4 cm. Score the strips using a bone folder or stylus, following the measurements in the picture below. Trim the corners as shown below and fold the strips to create little zig-zags. These pieces are the “hinges” of our little pop-up diorama.

4. Take your first frame, the one you want to place in the front, and add a stripe of glue to the back of one of its shorter edges. Make sure to use the glue on the back – we’re trying to keep the rough edges out of sight!

5. Take one of the “hinges” in the same color as the first frame and attach. Make sure that when you turn the frame over to its right side, everything is neat and aligned, the hinge’s glued tab is not peeking from the side (or the inside) of the frame.
Repeat this step on the other short edge of the frame, with the second coordinating hinge.

6. With the first frame facing down, add a stripe of glue to the inner tab of one of the attached hinges.

7. Place the next frame in line on the hinge, making sure it’s not sticking out on the top or the bottom.

8. Close the tab with the glue on top of the frame. Repeat on the other side.

9. If you made it this far – you got it! You have completed the first scene of your diorama!

10. If you follow steps 4-8 with the rest of the frames, you’ll receive this finished diorama base! I warmly recommend to decorate the last piece – the back of the diorama – in advance. It’s much easier than trying to stick your fingers in there for stamping or gluing…

11. Now you can stamp, cut, punch whatever elements you want, to create your special little scene.

TIPS AND TRICKS:

* I wouldn’t recommend adding more frames if the diorama is meant to be placed in an envelope. However, if it’s purely for decoration, you can add as many frames as you want!
* Use the entire frame, not just its bottom (as I did with the gray flags). It’ll make the diorama seem deeper and more dramatic.
* The back of the diorama doesn’t HAVE to be uncut. You can make it as a frame too, creating a see-through diorama.
* Why cut square frames? keep an approximately 1 cm margin (just to make sure the frame is solid), and cut the inside in the shape of a curtain, clouds, forest branches…
* Frame the diorama in a shadow box to get a very cool 3D decorative piece!

This diorama flattens to fit an envelope, but when pulled out it pops right up and becomes 3 dimensional and awesome!

Time for another tutorial!
This great mechanism is super-easy and actually really basic, but it can be the base for many beautiful 3D cards! I chose butterflies as an example to demonstrate the mechanism, but it could have been anything else: balloons, flowers, little signs with words on them… Be bold and creative, and share your results with me! 🙂

1. Start by choosing the paper you’re going to use. I went for green dotted cardstock for the base of the card. Make sure the base of the card is made out of sturdy, heavy-weight cardstock (and not thin paper).

3. Now would be a good time to make all the bits and pieces that will decorate your card. As the main moving elements I stamped butterflies on an off-white card stock, and cut them out carefully. I also cut some leaves in different shades of green for the background.

Print it out on a A4 sheet of paper and cut the template out, leaving margins around it as shown on the sketch and picture.
Use some masking-tape to attach the template to a piece of patterned paper (I recommend using the same paper as the card’s base. That way the mechanism will blend better and be less visible). Using a stylus or bone-folder, score all the dashed lines of the template. That will allow all the folds to be sharp and accurate. Cut along the continuous lines and remove the template.

5. Fold and unfold all the scored lines to ensure flexible axes. Fold the mechanism in two. Add glue to one of the glue tabs and place the mechanism somewhere along the central fold of the card’s base. Make sure the mechanism’s crease is facing you and is perpendicular to the card base’s crease.

6. Add glue to the other glue tab and shut the card close. Wait for the glue to dry, do not be tempted to open it right away! This is how it’ll look once you open the card.

7. The base of the mechanism is done! To create the arms that carry your main decorative element I suggest using double-thickness paper. Simply glue two pieces of card stock (again, I used the same paper as the card’s base) back to back.

8. Once the glue of your double-sided paper dries, you can cut the arms out of it. You can make them straight or curved – as you wish!

9. Glue an arm to the back of a decorative element (for me, it was a butterfly). Glue the other side of the arm to the mechanism, open and close your card just to make sure nothing peeks out when the card is closed. You can finish the card here, or add more mechanisms and more elements. Notice how attaching the arms to the mechanism’s base in different angles creates a more interesting result.

I haven’t been around much, I know, but here’s a treat to win your hearts back – check out the Glue Gun Girl blog. The blog’s author is Lisa, a song writer from the UK, who writes almost every day (unlike lazy me…) about all things DIY, from super cool crafts to fun party cocktails.

She kindly asked me to answer a few questions, like a short interview for her blog. I gladly wrote back, adding this great tutorial for a last minute Valentine’s card – a winged heart pop up for the one who makes your heart fly!

Hi everybody!
I’ve been back from an amazing vacation in Thailand for over two weeks now, and the sunny, warm beaches already seem like a faraway dream…
Now that I’m back, I think it’s time for a new and awesome tutorial! These lovely Royal Crown pop up cards are a great gift for a newborn (a little “prince” or “princess”), a nice way to tell a colleague “you rule!”, or a funny way to congratulate a friend on their new house (“king of the castle!”).
I’d like to thank my beautiful friend Tamar for being my hand super-model 😉

There’s a Heart Crown –

And a Basic Crown –

The tutorial I’ve made is long and detailed, but trust me – it’s super easy to make. Just follow these steps to create a fun pop-up you can decorate and personalize as you please.

1. First thing’s first – PRINT. Choose the Basic Crown or the Heart Crown template. They are basically the same, only the Heart Crown in more elaborated and requires a bit more work (oh, and has a heart on it, too).

In this tutorial I used the Basic Crown, but the steps ahead apply to both.

2. Time to choose the paper you’re going to use. You will need paper for the inner card, for the outer card and for the crown. The patterned paper is optional, something to spice up the exterior of the card.
I chose pale green card-stock for the inside, olive green textured card-stock for the outside, warm yellow textured card-stock for the crown itself and some groovy patterned paper for the extras.

3. Cut the interior card 20×14 cm, and the exterior 21×15 cm. Use a bone folder or a stylus to score them both in the middle. Fold the cards in half, along the scored axis, to achieve a neat fold.
This would be the time to round the inner card’s corners, stamp it and so on.

4. Measure 4 cm from the center, and mark it with a pencil. It doesn’t matter if you mark it left or right from the fold.

5. Now, take a look at your printed template. You’ll notice that some of the lines are dashed. These lines will be scored, not cut. The little tabs act as gluing tabs.

6. Cut the extra paper around the crown, leaving just a narrow frame around it.

7. Secure the template to the chosen card-stock with some masking tape.

8. Score all the dashed lines with a bone folder or a stylus. Apply a little bit of force to make sure it gets across to your card stock. Now cut all the lines around (DO NOT cut the dashed lines!).

9. The circular part can be either cut with scissors or punched out with a circle punch (the template matches a 1 1/4″ circle punch perfectly).

10. Your cut-out crown should look like this:

11. At this point I would recommend you take your bone-folder or stylus and have another go at the scored lines in order to make them easier to fold.

12. Fold the scored lines, so that the crown is folded in half and the glue tabs are folded inwards.

13. Add glue to the tab at the side of the crown.

14. Close the crown down over the glued tab and press. Wait a little allowing the glue to set.

15. Add some glue to one of the tabs at the base of the crown.

16. Turn the crown over, glued tab facing down. Align the crown’s base with the line you’ve marked earlier. This is the time to make sure the crown is located nicely and symmetrically on the card.

17. Push down the glue tab so it’ll stick to the card. Allow to set.

18. Add glue to the second tab at the base of the card.

19. Close the card over the crown and press. Give it a few moments for the glue to set.

20. There you have it! A royal crown!

21. Glue the inner card to the outer card. Notice the outer card gives a nice frame to the inner one. You can embellish the exterior card as you please, and give it to a regal loved one!

It’s been a while since I last posted here, work has been crazy lately and I had no time. This post has been waiting for some time now, and it’s finally done and published for you! Enjoy.

After the great responses for the Deep Purple card and the Winter Butterflies card, I took the time to create this step-by-step tutorial. Night falls so early these days, I had no choice but to take the pictures with terrible artificial light. Not the best conditions, but it’s far better than nothing at all, right? 🙂

The card I made here was measured to fit a 15X12 cm envelope, so at the end of the process you’ll get a 14X10.5 cm card.

1. Choose the papers you’re going to use for the base of the card: I used light gray cardstock measuring 14X21 cm for the exterior of the card, and a dark gray cardstock measuring 13X20 cm for the interior of the card. Score both to create a center-fold.

2. Take a piece of cardstock, same kind as the one you chose for the interior of the card. Mark with a pencil sections as shown in the picture.

3. Cut the pop-up base and tab from the piece of paper you’ve just marked. This is the time to decide how big you want the pop-up base and pulling tab to be. I went for a 6 cm strip, you can try this out and once you get the idea you can do it any size you want, but no more than your interior card height (in this case – no more than 13 cm). You can see in the picture I’ve cut some corners off, it’ll make hiding the gluing and sliding tabs a lot easier later on.

4. Score the tab as shown below.

5. Fold the scored lines to get the hinges your pop up and tab will need. Notice at the photo that most of the creases are mountain folds, except for the smaller gluing tab.

6. Take the interior base of the card (from step 1) and flip it over. Mark with a pencil the trail of the tab, following the measurements shown below.